Readers Write: Don't Give Rush a Break
alternet.org
Is Rush a Party Animal?
I guess I take Rush's drug problems differently than you do (Hero or Big Fat Idiot: Rush Limbaugh Should Not Face Prison, Matthew Briggs).
Oxycontin, the drug he bought by the "thousands" is not just a pain pill, it is a party drug that has the same effect as heroin when crushed and snorted. On its face the idea that he was using those thousands of pills only for his pain-induced addiction is goofy. One person, taking that�sort of quantity for any time would�become a mumbling, drooling lump.
A far more likely reason for his buying them in such large quantities is to have a party drug supply for his friends. This is in fact the assumption in drug enforcement;�trafficking charges are brought purely by quantity involved. The weight of thousands of Oxycontin tablets would be enough to trigger trafficking charges automatically. I can tell�you that if there was taped and e-mail evidence of this level of illegal drug purchases on an average American, they wouldn't see it in The National Enquirer, they would see a battering ram through their front door and a warrant only after they were cuffed.
Jeb Bush's daughter was arrested merely for forging one prescription, for 30 pills. This sort of small-scale drug purchase, or using multiple doctors for more scrips, are what addicts who can still function typically do. She was punished under the law, and you rightly point out that Jeb Bush has cut rehab funding. But as the law states, the quantities Rush is accused of buying should be a whole different matter. It is the dealing in recreational Oxycontin that allows the federal government to strangle the ability of honest doctors to prescribe these drugs to those who really need them.
While I support legalization of marijuana (medicinal and recreational), because it is equally or less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol, and the drug war costs far more than the plant does harm, I do not support legalizing the large-scale illegal and unregulated distribution of drugs that can be so easily deadly from overdose or long-term addiction.�This issue�is not simply an all legal, or all criminal�question. If Rush Limbaugh was really caught on tape purchasing such large quantities of this drug he should see prison, if only because it is the law, and until it is changed all who break it should pay the same cost.
As Rush said over and over of Clinton, "No one should be above the law."
Jim Nash
No Time To Be 'Humanitarian'
I'm a strong supporter of criminal justice and prison reform. �I've worked in it for years as Drug Policy Alliance, ACLU, TIFA, CURE etc. member.
I disagree with you strongly.�This is no time to be "humanitarian." It is only when people like Rush Limbaugh and Noelle Bush and their families and followers�feel the deep pain of incarceration, death sentences, and all the humiliation that goes with them, that outrageous drug laws and too-long prison sentences will be stopped.�Yes, these people are sick, but they can be agents of change if treated like millions of Americans who have suffered and will continue to suffer because they are poor and not politically connected.
Sacrifices must be made. Who better to make them than Rush and the Bush family?
J. Covici
Dallas, Texas
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